5 Weird Pop-Culture DOOM Mods You Can Play Right Now

So with the unbridled success of the 2016 DOOM reboot, there's been a renewed interest in revisiting id Software's classic FPS. Besides the "edgy" violence and the addictively quick run and gun gameplay, the engine itself was a brilliant technical achievement back in the day, making immersive 3D enviroments out of what was basically (from the computer's perspective) a 2D map that allowed it to run smoothly on practically every kind of hardware imaginable. This ease of access led to an incredibly large modding community, where aspiring game designers could share their creations using the easily transferable .WAD format to spread their bizarre work across the Internet during the dial up days. So we're taking a look at some of the more INTERESTING creations to come out of this community that's still making cool stuff TO THIS DAY.

The best part is, you can STILL play all of these games, even on that potato-quality netbook you got in 2013. Just get a special updated client likeZDOOMand start joining the WAD squad right now!

1. Ghostbusters Doom

If you're feeling a little nostalgic for the time period when Ghostbusters was a fun movie/toy franchise and not a topic you have to actively avoid at Thanksgiving, you might get a rush out of this semi-conversion that gives you a first-person perspective on such famous locations as the Library, the firehouse, and the rooftop battle with Gozer the Gozerian. Also worth mentioning is how they replaced the bloody face of the doomguy with a increasingly-annoyed Harold Ramis.

This project seems to be abandoned, but if you want to blast the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man while listening to a MIDI version of Ray Parker, this is worth playing around with:

2. Sonic the Hedgehog Robo Blast 2

This is actually a semi-brilliant adaptation of sonic's gameplay in a 3D world. DOOM was already about running around at the speed of sound, and the addition of Sonic-style slippery momentum works well. Let me clarify that statement, it's A GOOD ADAPTATION of the same slippery momentum of the 16-bit Sonic games, for good and for bad. The DOOM engine also looks great when handling the retro aesthetics (like we said before, the 3D in DOOM is technically a complicated 2D rendering). This is a fully functional game with various gameplay styles and characters and a much better outlet for obsessive Sonic fandom than disturbingly erotic Christian artwork.

This is a loooooooong video of the game, skip around and see JUST how far they stretch the limits of the DOOM tech and see how many different types of enviroments they can create.

Notice there's a LOT of instakills, a lot of bottomless pits and traps that are easy to slip into, but that's SONIC at the end of the day. Even for just curiosity's sake, take a look and see what it feels like when you gotta go fast.

3. Batman

Y'all remember Gotham City Imposters? It wasn't a particularly great take on the FPS genre, or the Batman genre. Perhaps Batman wasn't meant to be the protagonist of a genre about holding a gun and killing people? Luckily this total conversion has no guns... just automatic micro-batarang gauntlets... which aren't guns FOR SOME REASON. There are a lot of classic villains on display like The Joker, Bane, and Two-Face, and this is a pretty expansive conversion. Check out the video below:

I think what's most enjoyable about this is how lovingly it captures that 90s "Dark Age" of Batman comics, everything from the weapons, the focus on street thug enemies, and the TWIZTED splash screens harken back to that time when Batman was a cool claw monster. ALSO YOU CAN THROW EXPLODING BATARANGS AT PENGUINS. TENNNNNOUTTTATENNN!